Had a good talk to a friendly Canon bloke last night while playing with the 5DMK3. He said as keen photographers we should all be thanking our lucky stars that it is an Olympic year. He said the new stuff and good stuff is all going to start rolling out very soon. That includes:
The 200-400 should be on shelves by May!!!
Canon is concentrating on pumping out 5D3's
Battery grips won't be available for a couple of months
Forget about a 5DX, they are obviously very happy with the 5D3 and it will have a 4 year product life. The larger senser with 14:1 signal to noise ratio is their idea of what we need and they have delivered.
Mega MP cameras are on the drawing board, but don't be hanging by your .... waiting for one.
He was at pains to point out that Canon's FPS rates were all with mirror down and other competitors quote rates with mirror lock up so we have to all be aware of that when chasing that fast frame rate.
Production of the 5D2 will continue at least until August, they still consider it a very competant "35mm" camera and at $2200 is a bargain for anyone.
No electricity for 4 months last year was the thing that hurt their factories. They had big concerns over the number of inspections by Government, emergency services and countless hundreds of people after the disaster last year and R&D security was a big worry. I could tell last night when they jumped on a girl that slipped a card into the 5D and tried to take some shots.
The guy I was chatting to does go to events with black tape on protype bodies and he said they get a real laugh out of/ the rumour sites and thinks that they are about 95% wrong and only close to correct only about 4 weeks out from a release date.
I only wish this meeting was in a sushi bar and not at a camera launch and then I could really believe all that stuff above.